"The demo was sent to me while we were on a European festival run; and obviously, right off the bat, I was like 'This song is ridiculous, I love it.' So I said 'Let me get in there and see if I can write any words that I would want to sing,'" she told MTV News. "The song is about two people that know they're not really cut out for each other, but there's a fire there ... so I wrote about being a fire and the other person being gasoline — [the lyric] says 'Come pour yourself all over me' — because I wanted to go deeper into that tragedy of knowing this isn't right, but you don't care because it's just one more night."

That emotional connection carried over to the "Stay the Night" video, too ... especially since it was directed by Williams' old friend Daniel "Cloud" Campos, who made Paramore's "Now" video earlier this year.

"I love Cloud ... he's easy to work with and he's excited to work on videos, and that passion and energy is really important. You draw off it and feed off it," she explained. "You get a lot of emotion. There's a few cool tricks in this video, like there are scenes where I'm singing, and Cloud is holding a light bulb up to the lens, and it makes this really crazy effect, but it's just a light bulb; and I love that. It's not about spending a bazillion dollars on some fancy trick, it's about being creative."

"Stay the Night" also marks the first video appearance of Williams' dramatically shortened new 'do — she cut her hair days before the shoot — and, like the song itself, her new style serves notice that she's interested in pushing the boundaries, and expanding beyond the parameters of Paramore.

"In a video like this, when I'm by myself, the part of me that really is interested in fashion comes out more," she said "With Paramore, I'm very comfortable to just be me, and for me to step out of that is important. I get too comfortable sometimes with Paramore, and we're all trying to bust out of that. I chopped all my hair off, because I wanted to look a little older, a little different."